Puzzlehead (2008)
Review by Jeffery J. Timbrell
The story of Puzzlehead deals with a scientist named Walter in a desolate future who builds a humanoid robot that looks identical to him named Puzzlehead.
Not only is the machine a physical doppleganger for Walter, but the scientist is even using his own mind as the foundation for Puzzlehead’s artificial intelligence. The scientist copies his own neural net onto the robot’s brain and then nurtures its intelligence by teaching it chess, language and music. As time goes by Puzzlehead becomes a companion to Walter who uses it for chores and eventually lets it go out into the world to fetch food and supplies. After a dangerous encounter with unsavory elements Puzzlehead is modified so that Walter can chronicle and record all of his movements. The recording of Puzzlehead’s actions leads to the scientist discovering a chance encounter between the machine and a local grocery store owner whom Walter has been secretly infatuated with for a long time. This event gives the scientist an unprecedented opportunity to approach the woman he loves by stealing the identity of his own creation. The ramifications of this act set in motion a chain of events that lead to betrayal, rebellion, revenge and murder.
Puzzlehead takes the Frankenstein concept and explores its philosophical ramifications, and while that is nothing new the questions asked by the filmmaker are definitely more interesting and thought-provoking than the norm. Puzzlehead is intellectually multi-faceted and takes the concept of artificial intelligence in an interesting direction. Where even if mankind could create AI, would it be able to get over its own prejudices in how it has perceived and always used technology? We are used to machines being lower than animals and even insects, they are simply devices to be exploited by humanity’s whim; can we overcome that bias? At first Walter cherishes Puzzlehead, but as the story continues one begins to view the relationship not as a father and his creation, but as a child with a toy. Walter has created something that can engage him and communicate with him on a personal level, but he has done so for entirely selfish reasons. Not to create and study a new non-human intelligence, but just as a hobby. In many ways Puzzlehead represents much of modern technology in the modern era; where technology has given us a way to no longer live in communities and live with the people around us. Where we only have to talk to the people we want to talk to, and are never forced to confront opinions that are different from our own. So many people are cut off from different ideas and different perspectives on life which limits their point of view and makes them myopic. Walter uses Puzzlehead not to expand his own experience of what it means to be alive, but to isolate himself, to distance himself and cut himself off from the harsh realities of the outside world. Puzzlehead allows Walter to have a friend without the hassle of worrying about their feelings or getting into disagreements or arguments.
Technology has also become an intermediary between people communicating both online and off, and can act as a tool for us to meet and build relationships with new lovers and build friendships with people we would have otherwise have never met across the globe and even create business and working opportunities. However the frightening aspects of that very same technology allow for an unprecedented level of deceit and manipulation, allowing people to steal other people’s identities and use those identities to gain an innocent person’s trust while betraying their intimacy. One can see Walter’s own use of Puzzlehead as a way to seduce a woman who is he has been infatuated with, in a similar sense. But in this case, the technology is aware of how it is being abused.
In the case of Puzzlehead, Walter steals his own creation’s identity, which ultimately reveals Walter’s own limited perception of Puzzlehead and his intellectual bias regarding machines. Walter has built a Toaster Oven with a Soul, but to him it’s still just a Toaster Oven. Puzzlehead was only a living creature until Walter could use it to meet his own selfish ends, in which case Puzzlehead became a disposable piece of technology. And while Walter is too blinded by his own vanity to perceive this bias, Puzzlehead is all too aware of his creator’s faults and as Puzzlehead’s freedoms are limited, his privacy is invaded and his identity is stolen, he becomes more and more rebellious and ultimately outaged with his “father”.
This is truly an actor’s film, it could easily be a theatrical production, it’s so intimate, so having good actors with good performances is vital to the script’s execution and Puzzlehead delivers. Stephen Galaida is subtle and surprising as both Walter and Puzzlehead; his performance in the first part of the film is so convincing that when I realized that the two characters were played by the same actor it came as a genuine shock to me and I had to go back to earlier parts of the film to watch them again. The evolution of Galaida’s performance from the beginning until the film’s finale is a fine bit of acting and a nice spin on both characters, their differences and their similarities. Robbie Shapiro is also very good as Julia; she comes across equally damaged and vulnerable, and her initial attraction to Puzzlehead, considering the circumstances of her environment, seem to mirror Walter’s own interest, creating a strange love triangle dynamic.
Written and directed by James Bai, Puzzlehead is a quiet, thought-provoking and interesting science fiction/psychological thriller; it’s a film for people who are bored to death of the same-old, same-old in the genres and want something a bit more challenging. In Puzzlehead there is no gore, there is very little violence or action and very little suspense, instead the threats and conflicts are mostly emotional and intellectual. The film plays like an early David Cronenberg movie mixed with early John Carpenter sensibilities; in fact there’s a definite Dark Star feel to the intellectual duel between man and machine, where the line between them is blurred enough until finally there is no difference at all. Puzzlehead’s a movie with big ideas and large emotional landscapes that feels intimate while examining characters that are fatally detached.
A movie is often defined by the questions it asks, most films ask very simple questions like “would you survive a zombie holocaust” (hint: the answer is no). In Frankenstein films the question is usually “Should Men Play God?”, which usually comes off as preachy and melodramatic instead of thought-provoking. In Puzzlehead the question is “Why does man want to play God”? And that’s a far more interesting subject. Instead of looking down at the accomplishment of creating an Artificial Intelligence, Puzzlehead studies the human motives that could give birth to such an intelligence and it asks whether or not we’re prepared to overcome our own prejudices and preconceptions regarding the nature of that intelligence.
Puzzlehead is a smart, subtle and very different kind of movie, I enjoyed it and I recommend it.
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